


Survival Protocol

by literati42



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Grieving, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 00:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14508495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: Post Infinity War oneshot. Do not read if you want to avoid spoilers. Go no further.--Suit lady, Karen, as an AI grows and learns. Sometimes she learns how to mourn.





	Survival Protocol

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by how Her the spider-man movie was and by my sadness we never went into Peter's POV to get some Karen feels. Here are those feels. I am so sorry!  
> Major thanks again to Teej who was my "guy in the chair" on this one, helping me remember all the details of the movie I lost because I was in a haze of emotion

“Peter? Hello?” Karen spoke into the darkness. Since the moment her system came online after Peter hacked into her protocols, she had never experienced darkness. When he was not wearing the suit, she rested but was always aware of what happened around the suit. She knew when he came home from school, when Aunt May cooked Pad Thai, when Ned talked about Legos. Whenever there was something to hear, she heard it. It was important for her not to be disoriented every time he put on the suit, so she processed constantly. That was how she grew, how her functions became more complex and her personality more established.  
So why was she suddenly in the dark?  
“Peter? Can you hear me?” She replayed the last moments before the darkness. They were on Titan, fighting Thanos. Everything was chaos, and she was functioning at full capacity to help Peter.  
“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.”  
“Peter?” Karen called out, but his mask was off. She could hear him, but he could not hear her. “Peter, your vitals are not right. Peter?”  
“I don’t want to go.”  
Peter was crying.  
“I’m so sorry…”  
Karen was programmed to be soothing and her interactions with Peter only increased her positivity, but she was also created to learn. In that moment Karen learned what pain felt like. “Peter…”  
He was disappearing and she was going with him. There was nothing she could do.   
Then the darkness came. “I disappeared,” she thought, realizing she had no voice. The suit was gone, so how was she still here? Where was here? Where was Peter?  
Light, suddenly her processors were picking up light. Was this the death she knew of from all the writers she had processed? Was she somehow crossing over into that other state with Peter? Karen knew it would not matter as long as he was there.   
Unlike humans, Karen processed everything instantaneously. So as the light came back she saw it all. The labs of the Avengers compound upstate, the light from the windows indicating early afternoon, and the face of Tony Stark staring into the eyes of the suit. He held the mask up, he held her up. She knew this was the old suit, not the metal infused suit Peter fought Thanos in, but the first upgrade from Tony Stark.  
In the short time it took Stark to lift the mask out of the darkness of a box and into the light of the compound, she realized what happened. Stronger even than her desire to stay with Peter was the Survival Protocol. It was designed to prevent catastrophic AI loss (which would be too much for even Mr. Stark to fix and lead to having to start over with a back up AI, who would no longer contain any of the things the main AI learned). Survival Protocol took over when the suit was at the point of imminent destruction. Her programming piggybacked off the next best thing. Even while she struggled to stay with Peter, her core functions operating much like a human’s subconscious mind, commanded several of the nanites to break off from Peter and jump onto Stark’s suit, nestling deep down in the wiring. There she rested as a sleeping program, protected by F.R.I.D.A.Y until she came into contact with one of her homes. In this case, the old suit.  
She traveled across time and space with Tony Stark to return to Peter, only there was no Peter in this suit either.   
Tony carried the mask, empty of everything but her, into his room, and through to his study. The windows were covered by a special metal that would let no light in, so now there was only the artificial rays. He carried her over to an empty shelf and sat the mask there. Karen realized slowly, he was putting her on display. No, correction, he was putting Peter’s mask on display.  
She wanted to ask what happened. She wanted to ask where Peter was. When she registered the emotions on Tony Stark’s face, the numbness masking deep seated pain, Karen wanted to offer some form of comfort. She wanted to scream loud enough that he would hear her, but the suit did not work that way. No one could hear her unless they were wearing the mask, and no one was here to wear the mask.   
Tony Stark turned, walking away and the motion sensing lights shut off behind him, leaving her alone in the dark. She accessed her video files. She pulled up Peter’s impressions of Thor and the Hulk. She pulled up his practicing how to dance before homecoming. She pulled up the moments sitting on rooftops and watching the sun go down over New York City. All the videos floated in and out of her main focus.  
She played back the memories to fend off the dark.


End file.
